


7-Artifacts

by WritestuffLee



Series: The Warrior's Heart, Volume 2, Trials and Errors [7]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-02
Updated: 2001-01-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:12:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritestuffLee/pseuds/WritestuffLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two of the boyz buy curtains. Sorta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	7-Artifacts

**Author's Note:**

> Art by Kath Moonshine

Still mostly unconscious and largely sated, Bruck heard Kenobi mumble in his sleep and roll over, and was jolted into full and instantaneous wakefulness when his bedmate flailed and grabbed onto him, nearly falling off the edge of the bed and taking Bruck with him.

“Hey!” Bruck protested, none too happy at being rudely yanked from sleep, and not much of it.

“That’s it!” Kenobi snarled, sitting up on the side of the bed. His pale skin was warm and enticingly flushed, but his mood was obviously foul. Or more foul than usual in the morning.

“What’s the matter with you?” Bruck grumbled.

“Your bloody bed, that’s what’s the matter with me,” the other padawan snapped. “It’s barely big enough for you, let alone two. Doesn’t your master realize you’re not a Lannik?”

“If you didn’t thrash around like a hooked fish all night, it’d be fine.”

“If it didn’t have a Bruck-shaped indentation in the middle of it that you slid into to the exclusion of all others, it would probably be at least serviceable. But it’s old, broken down, and not big enough for two people to sleep in, let alone have sex. If you expect me to keep sleeping with you, you’re getting a bigger bed.”

“Just where would you suggest I put it? It’s a padawan room, not a master’s suite. Very nice that you’re used to such a—”

“Uh uh uh! No comparisons, remember? Not even of bed size. What’s your schedule like?”

“What?” The lightning change of subject confused Bruck, he not being quite awake yet, despite the fact that his eyes were open. Or they were last he checked.

“Schedule? You know? List of things you do during the day? Usually divided into periods of a half hour or more?”

“No sarcasm this early in the morning,” Bruck moaned, pulling the lone pillow over his head. “I’ve got two classes this morning, midmeal, then a few hours in the salles, since I haven’t been in them in days. I’ll probably be done an hour or so before nightmeal. Why?”

“I’ll tell stores to deliver around half-past fourth hour, then. Meanwhile, we’ll put this thing in the hallway for recycling, though Sith knows what they’ll do with it. Maybe the frame will still be good for something. The mattress certainly isn’t.”

Which is how Bruck came to be deconstructing his room in the hour before lastmeal, and revealing things about himself that he hadn’t intended.

“Where’d you get all this stuff?” Kenobi groaned, hauling yet another box of neatly catalogued and, as far as he was concerned, completely indistinguishable bits of broken pottery from where they’d been stored beneath the bed into the common room. “And what d’ya want it for, anyway?”

“Listen, just because you’re an ascetic doesn’t mean the rest of us are,” Bruck retorted, moving the commdesk’s chair out behind him. As threatened, they’d sent Bruck’s old bed down to stores for recycling and were clearing out loose objects from the room prior to moving in the new bed that had arrived that afternoon.

“Who said I was an ascetic?” Kenobi replied indignantly.

Bruck hurled a pillow at him. Ben caught it without fuss and added it to the pile of boxes. “You’re one and you know it. Your room doesn’t look any different than it did the day you moved in.”

“Does so. I’ve taken the model fighters down.”

“See?”

“Well, what is this stuff? It looks like something you’d sweep off the floor after the rancor had charged through the shop.”

“It’s potsherds.”

“Oh, illuminating, that is. Not just any broken porcelain. Old broken porcelain. And where’s all this historical broken dishware from?”

“Different digs I’ve been on, over vacations, sometimes on a mission. If we were near one I wanted to see, Leth would sometimes let us take a detour on the way home.” Bruck replied with quiet dignity, ignoring Kenobi’s sarcasm. “None of it’s valuable—and very little of it’s porcelain, for your information. It’s all stuff there was so much of that there was no harm letting one of the volunteers wander off with some of it. Either that, or there wasn’t enough of it to put together into something recognizable.”

“Same with these, I suppose?” Kenobi said, holding out another box of round metal discs, each carefully enclosed in a clear case, but looking like nothing more than roughly stamped, blank counters.

“Yeah, those are so worn you can’t tell what year they’re from, but they were all found in an old hot spring where the locals made votive offerings for centuries. There’s probably five or six hundred years worth of currency there, representing three or four dynasties and at least two belief systems, if you could tell. Some of it came up in big oxidized lumps that had sort of melted together in the water and heat, like ingots. That’s what those were. There were a couple that were recognizable after I’d cleaned them; I sent those back with a report on their location in the lump. When you do things like that, word gets around. Sometimes someone will send me something to clean up or put together just because I’ve got the time and patience and I’ll do it for free. It’s sort of like your model building, except I have to take notes while I’m doing it, not read instructions.”

“I never read the instructions.”

“Yeah, it shows, too.”

Kenobi hurled the pillow back at him. “Why do you keep things like this if they’re not valuable?” he asked, not teasing now, but clearly curious.

Bruck seemed almost embarrassed. “Don’t laugh, okay?”

“I won’t,” Kenobi promised gently.

Bruck squatted down on his heels and picked up one of the larger potsherds, stroking a finger over its faded, bluish-green surface. “When I touch something like this, I feel connected to the past the way the Force makes me feel connected to the present. It reminds me that I’m part of something larger than just the Temple. Somehow, it cheers me up to know that there have been—and still are—others out there just living ordinary lives, producing and using and losing and breaking things like this, leaving bits of themselves behind for us to find and remember them with. It makes the people the Jedi have always protected more real to me, somehow.”

“Can you feel them, in the object?”

“Sometimes. Not very often though. Not in the really old things. Master Eshkali can, but I’m not that sensitive. I can find things though, when nobody else can. Once in a great while I get borrowed to go out to a dig and be a living treasure—or potsherd—detector. That’ll probably be my career if I fail my trials,” he grinned. “But I know someone made this,” he went on, serious again. “Someone used it. Someone broke it or threw it away or abandoned it. And maybe it was lost for a long time, but I found it, and so even if I don’t know who I’m remembering, somewhere in the Force, they know.” Bruck ducked his head, ears turning red. “Sounds stupid, I know.”

“Not stupid at all.” Kenobi shook his head, reached out to touch first the potsherd Bruck held and then run his finger over the other young man’s knuckles. “It shames me, sometimes, how badly we all underestimated you.”

Bruck looked up quickly at that, surprised, then embarrassed all over again.

“So why were these shoved under the bed? Why don’t you display them?” Kenobi went on, smoothing over the awkward moment.

“I had them out when I was living with Leth,” Bruck replied, grateful to be distracted. “Then I moved in here and never got around to putting them out again,” he shrugged. “Didn’t seem all that important.”

“Well, let’s do it tonight then. It won’t take long to set the new bed up. We’ll go eat, get some shelving from stores, and arrange your collection.”

 

* * *

  
Hours later, Bruck and Kenobi flopped down side by side on the new bed together and surveyed their handiwork. The room looked entirely different now. Most of the padawan rooms were small and narrow and Bruck’s was no exception. It came with a small closet, a commdesk, a window overlooking one of the darker courtyards, and a narrow bed. As with regular quarters and initiates rooms, shelves and rugs and furniture could be added to suit. Despite his jab at Kenobi about being an ascetic, Bruck’s own room had been largely bare of personal effects or anything but basic-issue furniture, too. That had changed now.

Since stores would provide a bed to suit the various sizes, shapes, and cultures padawans came in and from, Kenobi had ordered several panels of thick, woven rush flooring in place of the bare floor Bruck had had, and a deep, soft mattress large enough for two that could be rolled up during the day, along with the bolsters and bedding to go with it. Over the commdesk and along the wall beside the window they had hung shelves and arranged Bruck’s collection of artifacts. The walls were lined now with shards of catalogued pottery on stands, some of the glazes quite lovely in themselves; half-reconstructed vessels with pleasing forms; cases of faceless, verdigrised coins; broken statuary that still retained much of its original beauty; one or two pieces of mangled but intricately made jewelry, one in gold; mounted fragments of paper with equally fragmentary but intriguing calligraphy that Ben decided should be shown to Qui-Gon some time; and bits of indecipherable plastic and metal and glass and stone, arresting in their inscrutability. Bruck explained as much of the provenance and history of each one as anyone could, and described the dig it had come from while they were arranging the objects. Ben had at least feigned interest in his explanations, even occasionally asking questions as they worked.

“Like it?” Ben asked now, lying beside his lover on the new bed, which Bruck had to admit was very comfortable and offered much wider possibilities for creative sex.

“Yeah, I do. I’d almost forgotten I had some of this stuff. Do you?”

“Yes,” Kenobi smiled, looking around, gaze finally lighting on Bruck. “It feels . . . like home.”

“It’s not though, is it?” Bruck said a little sourly, and then wanted to kick himself for spoiling a perfectly good evening. This issue had, as far as he was concerned, lain dormant between them for a reason, since they’d begun sleeping together again. Ben seemed to have no trouble ignoring it, and Qui-Gon seemed completely unperturbed by it; so why did he have to poke at it, especially now?

“It’s home when you’re here,” Kenobi said touching his hand. “When we’re both here. Does it feel like home to you?”

“When you’re here,” he acknowledged. “Otherwise it’s just a room. The Temple hasn’t felt like home to me in a long time, Ben.”

“Did your quarters with Leth?”

He had to think about that for a minute because it seemed so long ago. “Yeah, I guess they did,” he acknowledged finally. “But Andreth and I have only been a training pair for about a year now. I like him, and we work well together, but it’s not the same. It probably won’t be. I’ll only have a few more years with him and we both know it. We’ve bonded well enough to train, but not the way Leth and I had.” _Not like you and Qui-Gon,_ he thought, but nothing was. Ben had never spoken about how deep his bond with Qui-Gon was, but Bruck knew the two of them could hear each other’s thoughts with a little effort, and that was highly unusual in any training pair. Closer than most masters and padawans even before they’d become lovers, Ben and Qui-Gon walked a very precarious line in their relationship with each other. He was not certain many others could follow them. He knew he couldn’t, even with Ben.

“And you’re still grieving her.”

It surprised him, but Ben was right; he still missed Leth, though it didn’t hurt the way it had at first. They’d been close—too close at the end—and he had loved her in some way, though not the way she had wanted. “I guess I am. But that’s still only part of it.” She’d been a warm and kind presence in his life for many years when that was exactly what he needed, and no matter how it had soured and how badly it had ended, he was still grateful to have known her, and grateful that she had cared about him. But he missed the stability he’d had with her. He and his new master were not quite close enough yet for Bruck to feel as secure as he had with Leth. And his relationship with Ben didn’t help. Nor did his lack of friends at Temple.

Kenobi nestled up beside him and pulled him over half on top, their legs tangled, pelvises pressed together, Ben’s arms around him snugly, affectionately. “I wish it weren’t so hard for you,” he said. “I wish I could make it easier,” he murmured, gliding his hands up inside Bruck’s undertunic. They had both shed their outer ones in the throes of moving things around.

“But you don’t wish things were different,” Bruck said, pushing himself away and sitting up, wondering what had gotten into him lately. He couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut around Ben. He was blurting out things he’d only thought in dark moments when he’d been alone. Maybe that was the problem; he’d been alone too long and didn’t know how to act with others anymore. Or maybe he’d just finally grown tired of keeping everything inside.

Ben sighed and sat up beside him. “I’d be lying if I said I did. After all, I’ve got two very wonderful, very different lovers. But that doesn’t mean I want to hurt either you or Qui. Would it be better for you if I didn’t—”

“No! Don’t say it!” Bruck yelped, panicked. “Please don’t say it,” he went on more quietly. “I couldn’t—it just—I miss you when you’re not here, that’s all.” It certainly wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. “That wouldn’t change even if you and Qui-Gon weren’t lovers. It’s not going to change when we’re knights. I’m not jealous, Ben,” and he wasn’t, not anymore. The thought of Ben and Qui-Gon together didn’t make him angry, just hollow in the same way Ben’s absence did. “I just, I know we’ll probably never really be together for any length of time. That’s hard, sometimes. But it’s hard for all of us.”

“But less so for me,” Kenobi said soberly, “because I’ve got two of you, one of whom I live with. It’s not really fair, is it? Especially not for you, because you’re so insistently monogamous.” Ben sighed. “I wish I could give you that. But I can’t. I can’t change what I feel for Qui any more than you can change how you feel about sleeping with more than one person at a time, or about recreational fucking.”

“I know,” Bruck said. “I’ve known it from the beginning.” He slipped his own hand under Ben’s shirt, fingers running over the raised welts of the pictograms Qui-Gon had put there—a graphic reminder of where Kenobi’s primary loyalties lay. “I know it’s not the same with me as it is with Qui-Gon. It’s just . . . it’s hard to be grateful for table scraps sometimes.”

Kenobi grimaced. “That’s appalling. Is that what it seems like? That I’m giving you what’s left over?”

Bruck nodded, a little dazed by his own honesty. “Sometimes.” What the hell had gotten into him all of a sudden?

“I’m sorry, love. I’m obviously not doing something right then.”

“I don’t think it’s you, Ben. It’s just circumstance. I’m not sure I wouldn’t feel this way if it was just the two of us. It’s just how I am, I guess. Unfortunately, it clashes with being a Jedi.”

He felt Kenobi tense slightly under his hand, heard a small intake of breath. “What do you do when you and your master are here and Qui-Gon and I aren’t? Who do you go out with?”

This was truly dangerous territory, too much like the conversation they had had in the refectory several days ago that had drastically changed—everything. Ultimately, it hadn’t been a bad thing, but he felt as though he were still reeling from it and needed time to assimilate it all—not add to it. The past two years had encompassed far too much rapid and radical change that had left him feeling like he was losing control of the pace and shape of his own life. Leth’s suicide, his new friendship and then affair with Ben, his new master, the new information about his past, the slight thaw in his relations with his peers, the pain exercises both he and Ben had gone through—it was just a little too much all at once.

He shrugged in what he hoped was nonchalance. “I go out with Suri, if she’s not working or studying, or with a few people from some of the other classes I’ve been in residence for at the university. Sometimes I go out to the clubs with people I’ve met dancing. Most of the time I study, or go for a swim or work out, or work on some project like one of these.” He waved a hand at the artifacts on the shelves.

Ben glared at him from under acutely arched brows. _Never try to fool a Jedi diplomat,_ Bruck reminded himself, a little too late to be useful.

“You liar. You don’t go out at all.”

“Not very often,” Bruck admitted, giving up. “When I do, it’s usually to the clubs, sometimes with Suri, most of the time alone. I do have other friends outside the Temple, Ben. I just don’t see them often, we’re gone so much. You know how hard it is to maintain friendships like that. We’re in class together for a quarter year and the next time I see them, they’ve gotten their degrees and gone on to their own lives. It’s so different for us.”

“And you won’t, of course, let anyone pick you up when you do go out,” Ben said, ignoring his meant-to-be-distracting explanation. “I know you get offers. You get offers when I’m with you. I practically have to fight them off for you.”

Bruck grinned a little sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Ben said, touching his face, cupping his cheek then the back of his neck and drawing him into a kiss. “You’re a handsome bastard, and a good man. I wish you’d let someone else show you that, too. I don’t think you quite believe me.”

Bruck shook his head. “I’ve tried it a few times, Ben. It’s worse than nothing to me. I just feel empty the next morning.” Not just empty, but used and a little dirty, but he didn’t say so. It wasn’t something Ben needed to know, and it sounded too much like a judgement.

“Even with Suri? She really fancies you.”

“We’ve never slept together. She told you that. We’re just friends. I got a little, uh, tutoring from her before I took you to the club. But that’s all. And she does that for a living. It was a business transaction; a favor, actually.”

Kenobi looked disturbed now, and his shields had tightened up so Bruck felt nothing from him. He was sorry he’d brought it all up. “Did you at least have fun?” Kenobi asked, looking pained. “I mean, it wasn’t a chore, was it? Suri seems like she’d be fun to be with, fun in bed.”

“Maybe you should sleep with her, then,” he snapped. “Because I didn’t. And I won’t.”

“This isn’t working for you, is it?” Ben said quietly, a new sadness filling his eyes. “I had no idea I was hurting you this much.”

Bruck closed his eyes. It did hurt. He couldn’t deny it. He wanted Ben, wanted him like he had never wanted anyone. It was a physical ache when they were apart, greater or lesser as he thought about it or focused on something else, worst at night when he was trying to sleep. He wanted them to be together; wanted to share his own life with someone else for the first time; wanted to wake up next to Ben, holding him; wanted to know everything about him; wanted to crawl inside Ben’s skin and hide there—

Oh.

Oh, that was a startling discovery. After so many years of being alone and self-sufficient, it was another real shocker. Enough to choke a rancor. It certainly choked him.

The color must have gone from his face because Ben touched his shoulder. “What’s wrong?” he said.

But it was impossible to say. He shook his head mutely, breath frozen in his lungs, paralyzed with the discovery of that bottomless need and the fear that he’d always be alone inside himself. It felt old, like it had been lurking there all his life and he’d just this moment discovered it. He wondered how he could have missed it.

“I can’t keep doing this to you,” Kenobi said, voice anguished. “I can’t stand seeing what it does to you. I’m sorry, Bruck. I’m sorry I started this. If I hadn’t been so selfish I’d have stuck to my resolve when you found me in the refectory again. We shouldn’t see each other if it’s this hard. I should just go—” He got to his knees, got one foot under him, before Bruck caught his wrist.

“Don’t,” he whispered, almost voiceless. “Please.” And what he couldn’t say must have been in his face, because Ben didn’t.

Instead, he sat back on his heels and took Bruck’s hands in his own, rubbing his thumbs over the long slender fingers, the knuckles hard and roughened from combat training. “What do we do now?” Ben said sadly. “It’s going to hurt no matter what.”

“Then stay,” Bruck choked. “Be with me when you can. It’s better than nothing.”

“Even if all it is is table scraps?” Ben asked brutally.

“If that’s all I can get, yes,” he managed to whisper. _It’s better than starving,_ he thought, but again couldn’t say.

Ben leaned up, pain still etched in his face, dropping his hands and taking Bruck’s face between his palms instead. “I do love you. You know that, don’t you?” Bruck nodded. “Even when I’m not here, I love you. Even when I’m with Qui. Nothing changes that.” Bruck nodded again, still incapable of speech. Ben pulled him upright, onto his own knees and wrapped strong arms around him, pressing them together, shoulder to knee. It was an almost-perfect fit, he thought, resting his head against Ben’s and sliding his own arms around Kenobi’s waist.

Ben’s hands lay in the middle of his back, pressed flat against his skin beneath the shirt, branding him. He thought he understood now why Ben had wanted those marks on his back, why he had not just let Qui-Gon do it, but asked for it. The same urge took him now, to have some sign of Ben’s desire on his own body, to have him put one there, something more permanent than the bruises and love bites they regularly wore after being with each other. He rubbed against Ben, the silver bar in his nipple catching a little in the fabric, tugging, tingling. He’d done that himself, to surprise Ben and remind himself of . . . of what? They’d had nothing at that point, had only slept together once, with no promises. To give him hope, perhaps. But it wasn’t the same. He wanted Ben’s hand to mark him, claim him, remind him.

A shudder ran through him, a wave of need that rocked him physically. His hands clutched Kenobi’s ass, grinding their pelvises together. His cock began to fill as Ben rocked with him, sliding his hands down beneath his waistband to mirror Bruck’s grip.

“Tell me what you need,” Ben murmured against his ear, hands warm and hard on his ass, kneading.

 _I need you,_ he thought, but there was only so much of Ben he could have. “I need something to take away with me, to help me remember.”

“I can do that,” Ben said, nibbling his earlobe.

“Something permanent,” Bruck insisted. “Not just—”

Kenobi pulled back and touched his lips with a finger. “Shhh. I know. An artifact. A piece of my life. Like the ones on the shelves, the ones on my back.”

“Yes.”

He pushed Bruck back on his heels and straddled him, then leaned down, taking Bruck’s mouth in a slow, hungry kiss, nibbling and suckling first one lip and then the other, sliding his tongue along them, tasting and teasing before slipping inside. Ben’s mouth was like satin, lips dry and soft, his tongue like warm honey. He always tasted like sweet tea, though Bruck could never figure out how. Ben dipped into his mouth, stroking along the roof of it, tickling, sliding along his own tongue, touching and probing. Bruck pushed back into his mouth a little desperately and Ben broke away for a moment, whispering, “Let me. Just take tonight. Let me give. Like the first time.”

Bruck shivered and nodded. Ben closed in again for another kiss, his hands finding the bottom of Bruck’s undertunic and slowly pushing it up as they rode over his belly and chest and back, caressing. They broke apart for an instant as Ben pulled it over his head then sought each other’s mouths again, Ben exploring every nook and surface as though they had never kissed before. His hands glided over Bruck’s back, his shoulders, down his arms, down toward the waist of his pants, waking every nerve until his skin was on fire. They moved back up to his shoulders, pressed him down on his elbows and then onto his back as Ben nipped at his mouth, caught his lower lip between his teeth and worried it a little.

When Bruck was flat on his back, Ben pulled away a little and ran calloused fingers over his lips. They felt swollen and hot under Ben’s cool touch, and the rough pads of his fingertips caught at skin made tender by Ben’s nipping. Kenobi stripped off his own tunic then and let Bruck’s hands wander while he traced the shape of Bruck’s face as though he were blind, fingers running tenderly over the brow ridge, around the eye sockets, down his nose, over his high cheekbones, along the curve of his jaw, under his chin, like a sculptor shaping a bust. “You’re such a handsome bastard. I love just looking at you. How can anybody with bone structure that delicate be so masculine?” Ben’s voice sounded full of wonder, as though he’d only just noticed. His fingers moved down Bruck’s throat, over the knob of cartilage that bobbed as he swallowed, down to his sternum and across both collarbones to his shoulders, barely touching, leaving a trail of electricity in their wake. Bruck shivered and closed his eyes, heard himself moan.

“Shhhh, I’ll take care of you,” Ben whispered, leaning over him again. He bit down lightly on the flesh surrounding the tiny barbell piercing Bruck’s nipple, flickered the tip of his tongue over it, pulled it up with his teeth while his hands unfastened Bruck’s pants and eased them downward. Bruck gasped and reached up, stroking through Ben’s thick, red-gold hair. His partner bit the other nipple a little harder, sucking at it, sending quick jolts into Bruck’s groin. He cried out and bucked under Ben’s weight, but was held down firmly.

Kenobi flicked the metal bar with this finger, sending another jolt into Bruck’s cock, smiling as he watched Bruck squirm. “This was sheer foolishness for a Jedi, love,” he whispered into Bruck’s ear, and licked out with his wicked tongue. “But just seeing it makes me hard,” he added, holding Bruck’s hand against the bulge at his groin. Kenobi was indeed hard and hot, the front of his leggings already a little damp. Bruck closed his hand around the weight of it and felt his own cock twitch as Ben closed his eyes and gasped above him, rocking a little into his grip.

“Take them off. I want to see you,” Bruck said, voice urgent and hoarse with need.

Obediently, Ben went up on his knees. Smiling a little slyly, he slowly ran his hands down his own chest, through the red-gold hair that was almost invisible against his skin, pinching his nipples, scraping fingernails down across his flat, muscular stomach, leaving red lines across the fair skin, sliding his hands into his pants and thrusting into them before opening the fastenings and slipping them down over his hips. Bruck heard himself panting as Ben’s cock sprang free, arching against his stomach, revealing the rosy crinkled sac beneath, already drawing up close.

Bruck reached out to help him out of his clothing but Ben scooted back. “Look but don’t touch. Not yet,” he said, kicking off his pants and shorts. He knelt again and pushed Bruck’s legs apart, softly stroking the insides of his thighs until Bruck was trembling, and settled between them, one hand closing on Bruck’s sac, rolling the testicles in his fingers while the other hand traced the slight rightward curve of Bruck’s cock against his belly. Bruck felt his hips begin to move of their own accord.

“I can’t believe how much bigger you are when you’re hard,” he murmured, holding Bruck’s cock in one hand and sliding the foreskin over the sensitive head.

Bruck gasped and thrust into his fist. “You’re just—a showoff,” he muttered. “I’ve seen you . . . parading around the showers . . . without a towel . . . soaking up . . . the admiration. Oh gods, Ben,” he moaned, arching into his lover’s touch, lost for a moment. Ben took his hand away and began to stroke down his thighs instead.

Kenobi smiled, unperturbed. “And what’s everyone say behind my back?” and leaned down to lick and nibble at the smooth join of thigh and hip. Bruck squirmed.

“‘How’d a runt like that get such a big . . . head?’”

That made Ben laugh. “Fortunately, I’ve got Qui to adjust my perspective when I’m feeling, oh, cocky, shall we say? And there’s you, with this handful,” he added, squeezing appreciatively. “Who’d have suspected what was really under that towel?”

“I’d rather save it for private viewings.”

Ben laughed again. “I should sell tickets. Mmmmm, such smooth skin you’ve got,” he went on, appreciatively as his hands ran over Bruck’s body from shoulders to knees. “The hair’s all like down, except here,” he said, carding through the nest of crisp white curls at the base of Bruck’s cock. Holding it there, he leaned down and took the tip in his mouth, swirling his tongue over the glistening head and probing into the slit. Bruck cried out again and bucked into Kenobi’s mouth. Ben drew back. “Slow down, love. You’re always in such a rush.”

“You’re torturing me,” Bruck panted. “Every time you touch me it’s the same.”

Ben smiled, slow and lazy. “You know I’ll make sure you get what you want before I finish you off.” Then he leaned down again and closed his lips around one of Bruck’s testicles, holding it in his mouth, cradling it with his tongue and sucking gently as though it were a piece of candy.

Bruck couldn’t decide whether this was exquisitely painful, or the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt. His muscles locked in indecision as Kenobi moved on to the other testicle, rubbing the skin of his scrotum over the one he’d just abandoned. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh . . . _gods_! He cried, panting, trying not to move and yet wanting to. “Ben! Please!”

“Should I stop?” Kenobi asked, grinning up at him.

“I don’t know!”

“Ah, well, then, I’ll just keep on, shall I?” and he continued to mouth and lip Bruck’s balls until he was writhing on the edge of coming, growling and clutching the sheets. Ben gently tugged the tight sac downward, stroking the tender skin behind it. “Not yet, love. Not yet. I’m going to keep you wound up all night. Roll over.”

Trembling, Bruck obeyed, the pressure against the soft mattress almost too much. Ben pulled his hips back and up and pushed a pillow under him, and that was worse. It was almost impossible not to thrust or rub against it. “Hold still, or I’ll have to take one of the ties out of your braid and wrap you up. Or would you like that?” he whispered, leaning over and licking Bruck’s ear again. “Get on your knees and elbows then, love, if you can’t stand it.”

A little relieved, Bruck obeyed again, canting his hips up and back, following Kenobi’s hands, cock tapping his belly wetly. Ben spread his legs a little farther and reached under him, fingers coaxing his testicles lower and looser again. Then he stroked gently behind them, cupping the curve of his ass, his thumb sliding lazily along the crevice. Bruck squirmed a little, spreading his legs wider, inviting, once again suffering a brief moment of disbelief that he could do this and like it. Only with Ben, he thought. He was the only one it seemed right with.

“I know you want it,” Ben teased. “Just wait. You’re not ready yet.”

He felt a drizzle of warm oil low on his back, wondered where Ben had managed to find it in the chaos they’d created rearranging his room. “New bottle,” Ben told him when he asked. “Always be prepared.”

Bruck laughed, rather shakily. “If only your master knew how well you learned that lesson—or does he?”

“How do you think it was drummed into me?” He could hear the smirk in Ben’s voice, and for once the insinuation didn’t bother him, largely because Ben’s hands were spreading warm oil over him, rubbing it into his skin, letting it run between his cheeks. It trickled over tender skin, over the sensitive ring of flesh and muscle, tickling, itchy until Ben rubbed it in and over. He moved with Ben’s hands and fingers, rocking and sliding. One of Ben’s thick fingers followed the contour and shape of the little ring, smoothing more oil over and around it—then inside, oh, inside, but just barely. He leaned back into the touch, but Ben followed, finger coating everything with oil before finally plunging deeply inward and nudging the sweet spot that made him gasp and shudder.

“There, Ben! Right there!” he groaned, pushing back against Kenobi’s finger and reaching for his own cock.

Ben caught his hand away and held it down with his own, interlacing their fingers against the mattress. “Not yet, I said. Wait for it. Trust me. Okay?”

Bruck nodded, barely coherent. His hips rocked with the movement of Kenobi’s hand. Now there was more oil, and a second finger inside him.“Oh gods Ben,” he whispered, at a loss for anything more articulate, arching his back, rocking into those thick fingers while Kenobi stroked soothing circles on his back, cupped his ass affectionately, rubbed his bristly chin down Bruck’s spine, whispered endearments and indecencies in those diplomat’s plummy tones. It was more than just a partner stretching him, it was his lover reaching inside him, touching him where no one else did, doing more than just bringing him pleasure, but making it safe for him to let down all the barriers he’d spent his life building. Loving him. Ben loved him; he was safe here, wanted, cared for.

“Love you so much,” Ben murmured as though he’d heard, kissing the back of his neck, fingers gently turning inside him. They rubbed over the sweet spot again and Bruck groaned, squeezing his eyes shut, trembling, trying not to come. Ben’s other hand pressed behind his balls and his erection softened a little, pulling him back from the brink. Bruck sighed, a little comically.

“You’re always so quick to go off, aren’t you?” Ben teased.

“With you, yeah.”

“And you called me a slut the other day.”

“Did I?”

“Right before the meet, remember?”

“So I did. Rubbing all over me like something in heat.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Only for you.”

“Thank you,” Ben said softly, and that was enough.

His fingers slipped out and Bruck shivered, feeling cold and empty without Ben’s physical presence inside him. “Shhh, I’m right here,” Kenobi murmured as two fingers became the tips of three easing into him slowly, turning just barely inside him with a care that couldn’t help but remind him how brutally he’d shoved himself and . . . other things . . . into Ben not so long ago.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

“For what, love?” Kenobi said, working inside him gently.

“For what I did in the practice ro—”

“Hush, idiot. I liked it, remember? I know it was hard for you. We’ll talk about it later, if you want. Right now, just be here with me. Be in this moment. Take what I’m giving you. Open for me, love. Let me in.”

He felt a brush against his shields, realized it was Ben. Remembering what they’d done that first night in Leth’s room, he let them down cautiously. Warmth and light flowed into him like water, seeking the empty places in him and filling them. He felt Ben’s fingers slide into him all the way, arched back onto them to fill himself physically as Ben’s presence was filling him. “Now, Ben. I’m ready. Now, please!” he gasped. “I can’t wait! Want you!”

“Like this or face to face?” Ben asked him, still gently twisting his fingers inside.

“Face to face,” he moaned. “Please, hurry. I want you, Ben.”

“Lie down and roll over then, love,” Kenobi said in an amused tone, pulling away and cleaning off his fingers. And when Bruck complied, there was still the ghost of Ben’s lazy, amused smile on his lover’s lips. “So ready,” Ben murmured, admiring his cock, stroking the foreskin up over the weeping head and back. Bruck moaned under the touch, thrusting into Ben’s hand again.

But Kenobi let him go and slicked his own cock, slowly, watching Bruck’s face as he did so, then worked his way between Bruck’s legs again. “Up,” he said, sliding his hands under Bruck’s ass and lifting, then scooting up beneath him as Bruck raised his pelvis, weight resting on his feet and shoulders. “Open for me, love. Let me in,” Ben said again, his own voice gone husky as he pressed the head of his cock against Bruck’s loosened opening.

Bruck drew in a deep breath and let it go, relaxing as he did so. Ben slipped inside easily, filling him, hot and slick and so big. He cried out as Ben pressed inside, feeling everything shift to take in that big cock. For a moment he felt the urge to bear down and void the uncomfortable fullness, but that passed as he pulsed his muscles around Ben’s shaft. Kenobi shuddered and wrapped Bruck’s legs around his waist and rocked upright on his knees, hands spread wide over Bruck’s lower back, holding him. Bruck moaned and pressed against him. It was so deep this way, such a tight fit, Ben’s groin and balls pressed against his ass, cock angled to hit his prostate with every thrust. He rocked in and out and in again gently and Bruck cried out, thrashing, clutching the sheets, pressing against him.

“Now come inside,” Ben whispered, and seemed somehow to pull him out of himself, along the same stream that had filled him like running water, until he was inside Ben’s shields, too, in a new place. They had met each other halfway before, and he had let Ben in tonight, but he’d never asked Kenobi to drop his own shields. Ben had just invited him in—not something any Jedi did often.

The warmth and light were stronger here, like afternoon sun on a warm beach, and he could feel Ben’s arousal too. More surprisingly, he could feel Ben’s need, as deep a one as he seemed to have himself, something that either Qui-Gon didn’t fill or Ben had never shown him. Then he realized with a start that it had nothing to do with Qui-Gon at all. It was a need simply for _him_ , for Bruck. It was not the amorphous, polyamorous, undifferentiated desire he had imagined let Ben sleep with whomever he wanted, including Qui-Gon. That was nowhere to be seen. Ben wanted Bruck, very specifically, wanted him now, in this moment and beyond.

Ben was moving inside him, slowly stroking across his prostate, hands kneading his back, head thrown back. _//Stay here,//_ he heard and couldn’t say where, but knew it was Ben’s voice. _//Stay with me.//_ “You’re so tight. So hot. So beautiful,” Ben murmured, thrusting a little harder. “Love you. Love you so much.”

It was a curious double view. If he concentrated, he could feel his own cock enveloped like Ben’s as well as feel Ben thrusting into him, feel Ben’s arousal cresting like his own. But his concentration wouldn’t hold for more than a moment with Ben thrusting into him, feeding his own arousal across the new bridge between them. Ben’s heat built with his own, fed back and forth until they were both crying out with each thrust, Ben rocking into him hard and fast. Something white-hot grew behind his eyes, blinding him, and in his groin, both points spreading outward and engulfing him as they engulfed Ben, until they were both on fire, Ben’s cum filling him as his muscles rippled and clamped down around Ben’s cock, his own cum spurting over both of them without Bruck ever touching himself, crying out each other’s names, shaking, moaning, gasping, and finally—spent. In that moment, he couldn’t tell whose perceptions were whose, nor did it matter.

Ben let him down carefully onto his back and bent over him, panting and moaning a little, hips still working almost spasmodically, Bruck’s legs still wrapped around his waist, holding himself up on trembling arms. He felt Ben’s cock softening in him, felt the aftershocks and spasms pushing him out, and thought how much he’d wanted Ben to stay there, inside him. When they were two again, Ben collapsed beside him, breathing heavily, and Bruck shifted to pull him closer, limbs watery with fatigue. They lay together catching their breath for some time, saying nothing, hands resting easily on one another’s skin. Eventually, fighting off sleep, they cleaned each other up and then groped for blankets together. Ben flicked off the lights with a Force gesture. They settled into each other’s arms, and Bruck into something like bliss.

 

* * *

 

When he woke again, it was still dark in the room, as well as outside. Ben was spooned up behind him, holding him, sleeping deeply from the sound of his breathing. He could feel Ben’s chest rising and falling against his back, Ben’s breath on the back of his own neck. The new mattress was soft, the covers light and warm and Ben’s hand was interlaced with his own, the other arm curled over his head, fingers buried in Bruck’s short hair. The room’s smell was a comfortable mixture of new fabric, the familiar mustiness of old things and their lovemaking.

That had been wonderful tonight, and he’d never felt quite so content afterwards as he did now. Lying beside Ben, he felt more complete and more at peace than he’d ever felt in his life.

Sleepily, he wondered what had awakened him and lay with his eyes closed, listening. After a time, he heard a faint murmur of voices and thought perhaps his master had come home early and brought someone with him or was making his report to the Council, but they seemed too distant for that. Ben snuffled and snorted quietly behind him, then leaned into him and began to laugh, still asleep. Then he knew he was hearing Ben, whatever vision the Force had brought him that night, and though he couldn’t tell what it was, he could feel Ben’s amusement and joy as though it were his own.

That was why he felt so complete now, so at peace: Ben had left a part of himself with Bruck, had bonded them somehow, not the way a master and apprentice would bond, or at least not the way he had bonded with Leth or with Andreth, but something both deeper and . . . different. He’d always thought of his training bonds as something like a net, both inclusive enough to be protective and guiding and yet loose enough to allow him freedom of movement. This felt like a small, glowing coal inside him, like a piece of the light that was Ben had somehow been left behind in their joining.

He burrowed into it and found it was, instead, a door with Ben on the other side of it, dreaming about a party he’d gone to with Bant and Tianna and a young senator’s son. He snickered again against Bruck’s neck, filled with amusement and happiness. Bruck let it fill him too and felt himself falling into the vision with Ben, until it was no longer the past but the future, a glimpse of what their life might be with one another. They laughed together then, Ben in his sleep, in the vision, and Bruck drowsing beside him, heart full of Ben’s light and the future.


End file.
